1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to a routing protocol, and more particularly, to a method of implementing a multicast routing system in a mobile ad-hoc network environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile ad-hoc network is designed for forming a temporary network among wireless mobile apparatuses to perform communication among the respective wireless mobile apparatuses. Therefore, the mobile ad-hoc network is very different from an existing wire network.
Wireless mobile apparatuses (“nodes”) have mobility, and provide a function of transmitting or receiving various types of data.
Examples of a method for transmitting data to nodes in a mobile ad-hoc network environment include a unicast method for transmitting data to only one specific node, a multicast method for transmitting data to a plurality of grouped nodes, and a broadcast method for transmitting data to all nodes belonging to a mobile ad-hoc network without designating a specific node or group.
Examples of a multicast routing protocol in a mobile ad-hoc network environment include: MAODV (Multicast Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector), ODMRP (On-demand Multicast Routing Protocol), MOLSR (Multicast extension for the Optimized Link State Routing protocol), and the like. These protocols use a flooding method.
However, due to special circumstances in wireless communication, a number of nodes that firstly transmits data (“source nodes”) or a number of node groups, each of which is composed of a plurality of nodes (“groups”), increases, which results in a loss of control information. As a result, transmission rates of data packets are rapidly lowered.
In particular, in the case of the ODMRP, overhead for control packets and the amount of used network bandwidth increase substantially as much as the overhead for control packets or the amount of used network bandwidth according to a flooding method.